In the field of aircraft construction, it is necessary to provide different functional units within the aircraft with cooling air. In the past, in order to meet the different requirements of the devices requiring cooling air within the aircraft, separate cooling air supply systems were provided adapted to each individual device requiring cooling air respectively. In this way, the individual devices requiring cooling air were supplied with sufficient quantities of cooling air, however this led to sophisticated cooling air supply systems, which all together significantly added to the weight of the aircraft, as well as associated high manufacture and maintenance costs. Moreover, several air inlets and air outlets had to be provided in the outer skin of the aircraft which weakened the aircraft structure and which led to relatively high additional air resistance (drag) of the aircraft. Finally, as a result of the different cooling air supply systems, a considerable amount of structural space within the aircraft interior was taken up.
In response to this, it is an object of this invention to provide a cooling air supply system of the type indicated above, which can be produced so as to avoid the disadvantages with regard to the current state of the art technology described above, with a high level of efficacy and at low cost.